The Slate Walloped the State in Social Media [Infographics]

30Jan

Two events dominated discussion last week: the unveiling of Apple's iPad and President Obama's State of the Union address. Leading up to last Wednesday, many wondered if Apple's event would overshadow Obama's. On social media, that was certainly the case.

Monitoring Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, blogs and the rest, social media analysts at Viralheat found over half a million mentions of the two happenings. Those mentions were overwhelmingly related to Apple's new tablet computer.

As the infographic explains, however, even if Apple had the buzz, Obama brought the honey. Generally, 42% of Apple's mentions were positive and 46% were indifferent, whereas 65% of his mentions approved of Obama's address and only 19% were indifferent.

On one hand it's surprising that the iPad generated so much more discussion than the State of the Union address, but in a sense it wasn't a fair fight. Whereas Obama's address is a routine, annual affair, the hype leading up to Apple's event suggested it was going to be one of a kind. Perhaps that's why the internet reacted so overwhelmingly with ":|" when the familiar-looking device was unveiled. [Mashable]